Letter: Right to roam

ROBIN HANBURY TENISON (letter, 23 February) seems to think that voluntary agreements on access to the countryside are the best way forward.

Unfortunately this has not been the case. The 1949 Countryside Act made provision for voluntary agreements and, to quote Angela Eagle, Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions: "Although some use has been made of existing access provision, generally, they have not been implemented sufficiently widely."

Voluntary agreements can also be broken. Would the landowners be quite so keen to allow access if a government less sympathetic to ramblers were in power and there were no threat of introducing right-to-roam legislation?

STEVE BARBER

Beeston, Nottinghamshire